How to avoid leaning walls in your property photos

Things that lean can be good, just look at that tower in Pisa, people love it! Leaning walls in property photos, however, not so good. It’s best to try and avoid them, here’s how.

The unwanted visual trickery that causes leaning walls, where the confines of the room appear to splay outwards or tower inwards, is caused by a combination of two things:

The perspective from the height at which the shot is taken

The way the camera lens works. The effect is amplified if using a wide-angle lens.

Below are three images all taken with a digital SLR and wide-angle lens. You can clearly see that the perspective is unnatural. The angle of the walls are not the same as how our eyes would see them and this is why some people argue that wide-angle lens photography can be misleading.

The important thing to note here, is that these were taken from head height looking down into the room.

Shots taken from head height

Fix this by crouching down to take the shot

Minimise the undesired effect of the walls splaying outwards or towering in on you by crouching down to take the shot from waist height — it’s that simple. That’s why it is one of our Golden Rules of Property Photography.

Warning: You will be giving your knees and glutes a small workout, but the shots you capture will look a million times better!

Shots taken from waist height

Want to learn more simple tips?

There’s loads more helpful tips in our Ultimate Guide to Property Photography. In it, I share everything I know from photographing thousands of houses for Estate Agents over the years. I guarantee the advice will help you take better property photos! Download it for FREE right now…